


Gentle Graves and Gingers

by LovelyLittleGrim



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Afterlife, Death, Gen, Ghosts, MCD, Sad, based on a tiktok, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24801415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyLittleGrim/pseuds/LovelyLittleGrim
Summary: For a moment, Fred thinks he’s been hit with a confundus charm.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	Gentle Graves and Gingers

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the tiktok by CreepyCatCosplay. All credit to her. I highly suggest you go and watch it and let that shit rip your fucking heart out the way it did mine. Like it was instant tears. 
> 
> https://vm.tiktok.com/JJUpnSP/

For a moment, Fred thinks he’s been hit with a confundus charm. His thoughts are a messy swirl of emotions, all of them feeling too big and yet distant. The world around him is all muted colors, softened into blues and greys—it’s quiet in both sound and color in a way that he’s very much not used to.

He doesn’t know where he is right now, the place looks familiar, like a dream he's had before, one he’s sure he hadn’t enjoyed, doesn’t believe he’ll enjoy it now either.

There’s something important, he thinks, that he should know right now—that should be at the forefront of his thoughts,but his brain can’t make the leap it needs. He stands still, jaw clenched and hands loose at his sides. He probably looks like a tosser, eyes all scrunched up and head cocked to the side, he feels like a tosser—bit like Percy when he’s trying to study.

There’s a moment of clarity, just a short burst. His thoughts skidding along the lines of: study, school, Hogwarts, war...

Fred remembers catching George’s eye as they battled their way through the corridors, a joke on his tongue as he laughed. He remembers his wand raised high and exhilaration in his veins. Everything had been so alive around him, people and sounds, a raucousness that seemed like it might never reach its end.

But then... it had, hadn’t it? Ended, that is.

Fred can’t remember it happening, not really, but he thinks the cold was to blame—That icy creature that had crawled beneath his skin and burrowed down deep into his chest. It had felt like a snow storm in his ribs, spreading, spreading, reaching out with its icy fingers to strangle every part of him and...

And what?

Fred recalls the way George’s smile had slid from his face, the way his eyes had gone wide and scared, the hand he had reached out towards Fred like he’d been hit with Ginny’s Molasses Mobility jinx, impossibly slow. Too slow. Too late.

Hair, long and red, catches his eyes. Gin?” He mumbles, stumbling forward. Distantly, he thinks it’s longer than his sisters has ever been, straighter, shinier—Cared for in a way that his rough and tough sister has never attempted. “Ginny where—“

When the woman turns, Fred sees her face and halts. Not a single freckle dots her pale cheeks.

It’s not his sister, and even though Fred’s never met the young woman standing in front of him he knows who she is at once.

It’s the eyes. Bright green andfilled with both a kindness and determination. The same eyes set in Harry’s face. Fred has heard over the years, countless times now, just how much those eyes looked like Harry’s mothers. So, it’s impossible to mistake the woman in front of him for any one other than Lily Evans Potter.

Fred knows then what this is. Where he is. He trembles, but the strength in Lily’s eyes keeps him standing. He swallows thickly, lips parting to say something, anything. He can almost recall the joke he was going to tell, but now, without George by his side, it doesn’t seem so funny or worth telling.

Lily’s eyes take him in carefully, from head to toe, and something in them shatters the way that all good mothers shatter when faced with a child lost too soon. She calls out for someone, head twisting to the side though she never looks away.

Fred hears his name—a soft, sad utterance—and then, “it’s Molly’s son.”

She knows him. The realization is jarring and yet, he can’t help but feel a small coil of warmth that blooms in his chest. She knows him; knows him because she’s been watching over her own son all these years.

In this moment, Fred wishes he could speak to Harry, tell him; wishes Harry knew that his parents are always with him. He thinks Harry deserves to know that. Deserves to know that just because someone is dead doesn’t mean they’re gone or that they can’t love you more than life itself.

Lily’s hand, pale and soft touches his, pulls him closer so that she can cup his face tenderly, smooth her thumbs over his cheeks where tears have started to fall. She smiles at him, and it’s heartbreaking and beautiful all at once.

“It’s okay sweetie, it’s okay,” she murmurs and pulls him even closer. “I’ve got you now. You’ll be okay.”

He falls into her, let’s her hug him the way his mother has always hugged Harry and believes her when she whispers into the messy scruff of his hair, “I’ve got you.”


End file.
